Japan's Makato Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa share the Nobel Prize with American Yoichiro Nambu for work related to a fundamental description of nature at the subatomic particle level through what is known as broken symmetries. Steve Mirsky reports

Germany's Harald Zur Hausen and France's Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi share this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The two French scientists discovered HIV, which quickly led to blood screening and treatments. The German showed that cervical cancer was caused by the human papilloma virus, paving the way to a vaccine. Steve Mirsky reports

In their first collaborative article 20 years ago, 2008 Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier, along with Robert Gallo, co-investigators who discovered HIV, introduced a Scientific American single-topic issue on AIDS. They recounted the breakthrough and offered prospects for vaccine, for therapy and for the epidemic